In typical inkjet heater chip designs one of the first variables to be fixed is the vertical resolution of drop placement. From this starting point other properties such as the heater addressing matrix, input data register length, chip clock speeds etc. can be defined. Using this method, chips with similar properties except for vertical resolution often have incompatible electrical interfaces which require a unique ASIC, driver card and carrier for each design. While this may provide a cost effective bill of materials for a specific design, the savings can be offset by increased development resources and time to market. Therefore, this design approach is best suited for high volume designs with long product life cycles.